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Ch. 4: Sophia
Back to Arheled Ronnie Wendy mounted the steep bank to the library, leaving his bike locked to a signpost on the street below. He wondered if he could slip past the librarians and use the computer without having to sign on for once. Something about the lack of anonymity at the Beardsley Library was beginning to get him wary: the small-town atmosphere of the farmhouse-like layout seemed to make it impossible to slip quietly through. The librarians always wandered about, watching. The director, Mrs. Linda, was the worst. She had a papery oldish face and a mild sort of demeanor, and yet that made her seem all the more dangerous, as if, with a deprecatory smile, she might suddenly send you to the principal’s office. And indeed there was a good deal of principal in her; you felt, under her wise considering eyes, like a young boy caught stealing cookies. Ronnie avoided her sight as much as possible. Today one of the other librarians, the one with thick curly black hair and a pink round face, met him at the entrance and took him aside. “Mr. Wendy, I’d like to speak to you for a moment.” Eyeing her warily, Ronnie complied. They withdrew to the entry. “There was an incident here on Wedensday.” “Hmm—Wednesday—was I even here?” “Yes. In fact, you were involved. You were overheard making a very distasteful remark about the Carnival Massacre. Almost all of us have family or friends who died there. In light of this we’ve filed a criminal complaint to the Winsted Police Department, and you are now banned from the premises.” Ronnie’s eyes burned under his brows as he met the librarian’s eyes. “You mentioned my name to the police?” he said in a flat voice. A red flash gleamed in them for a moment. “Traitor.” Then he was gone, sliding down the bank and unlocking his bicycle, wild thoughts revolving in his head. '' The enemies are coming out into the open, '' was his first.'' I always wondered why I felt wary about that place''. And a second, more bitter thought at the back of it: '' Never trust a witch. '' He did not see the car that had pulled into the parking lot as he went down the bank, or the thickset oldish woman who got out with some effort. She had dull rust-colored hair and glasses, and behind them eyes like chips of cold rock. She wore an odd cardigan and a grayish-brown skirt. In one hand she used a peculiar cane; it was carved of some dark wood, but so slick and polished as to look like a plastic imitation of wood. The shapes it was kinked into drew the eye, with mingled unpleasantness and fascination, faint but perceptible. Leaning on this she passed through the doors of the Beardsley Memorial Library. Nerissa, who was industriously scanning books, looked up with a round smile…which froze in place, and then faded. “Um, hello, Grandmother.” she said. “Good afternoon, child.” the woman murmered in a quiet tired voice. “And how have you been?” “I’ve been doing all right. How is the back?” “Oh, much better. I barely even need this anymore,” she held up the cane, “but I like its’ looks.” “I really wish you wouldn’t carry that around,” Nerissa said, eyeing the strange contortions of the polished wood with an odd discomfort. “Laurel is a very potent wood,” the old woman said, still quietly, but no longer sounding so tired. “But you no longer seem to look on it the old way. It has been a long time since you joined our little book club, Nerissa. Some of us are wondering—if you are still with us.” “It’s been really busy,” Nerissa said, pretending to be engrossed in her scanning the returned books so as not to have to meet the other’s eyes. “I barely have time to go home and sleep.” A strange smile crept across the lined old face. The stone-like eyes now gleamed like mica. “And yet you made time to go out with a Catholic.” “Well, I didn’t know for sure until we were already underway, and then I just wanted to—enjoy myself.” said Nerissa defensively. “Really,” said her grandmother, still smiling. “And yet you haven’t so much as spoken to any of us since.” Nerissa’s white hands came to a pause, though she was still looking at the computer screen. “Why can’t you all just—leave me alone or something?” she said at last. “I have my own life to lead. I’m not really good with groups and such.” “Because we are concerned, child.” said the old woman softly. “We are worried for your outlook. We would not want you to lose touch with the energy. Not when you already have so much of a gift. Tell me—this Ronnie, did he try to shake your faith?” Now at last Nerissa’s eyes, big and rather bulging and more froglike than ever, met her grandmother’s eyes. “What did he tell you, child? Did he call you what the others called you, when they so unkindly drove you out? No, I see he didn’t. Was he oh-so-compassionate, so caring, so love-one-another, perhaps? No? You surprise me more and more. What spell did he cast on you, Nerissa?” Nerissa dropped her eyes, raised them again, and lowered them. “Catholics don’t cast spells.” she said. “They just—are. The others weren’t—he’s a very strange Catholic—“ “Tell me,” and the other’s voice was now flat as hidden stone, “what he said to you.” Nerissa looked up once more. “He said my gift was from the Holy Spirit.” The air grew cold. Nerissa could no longer lower her eyes. The lights around them dimmed and flickered. The face of the older woman was as unmoving as granite, and as cold. “Did he now,” she breathed, and yet each sound was like a concealed hiss. “Then I’m so glad you turned him in. That is the only thing, Nerissa, that gives me any hope. For I am greatly afraid that I have to admit, child, that I am very disappointed in you.” “Actually, I was the one who filed the complaint.” Mrs. Linda said. The papery smile was on her face again. She had come out of her office beside the entrance. “Oh, well then I’m so glad, Linda.” said the grandmother, returning the smile with some effort. “He is certainly a very dangerous person. I do hope you make sure he keeps away from my granddaughter.” “Oh, we will, we will. If he sets foot here again he’ll have to explain himself to the Winsted police. We work very closely with them.” “Yes, yes, such nice '' people they are, for sure. That Cornello, for instance, actually called me ‘young lady’ the other day!” She tittered. Nerissa shivered: there was a horrible joke in that titter, she felt, that none but her grandmother knew, and would not tell. “Do give him my best if you see him, won’t you?” Mrs. Linda promised she would, and headed into the main room to see if the computers were working. At once the old woman fixed Nerissa with her strong eyes. “You will come to our meeting on Oct. 7th,” she said in a very quiet voice, “or we will come for you. There is no leaving, Nerissa. You are in far enough to know that. Will you be there?” “Um, sure. I’ll mark it on my calendar.” The old woman broke into a motherly smile. “You will? That’s so sweet of you, honey. We all miss you, you know. Barbara was saying to me just the other day, ‘Where’s that charming young niece of yours? The group just isn’t the same without her.’ Senile, she is, but such a dear for all that. Oh, and we have new pupils, did I tell you! Two young girls we’ve known for some time have shown enough promise to be admitted. We plan to welcome them this Friday—no, that’s the day after tomorrow now, isn’t it? too short notice for you, I’m afraid. But we’ll see you on the 7th! Don’t forget now!” “I won’t.” said Nerissa, making an attempt to return the smile. “Bye! Have a good weekend!” Professor Light flicked the switch as he came into the lab which housed his most puzzling investment. The big machine, looking more than ever like a bunch of old Xerox copiers dumped in a back storeroom, sat forlornly under a coat of dust. The cleaning staff wasn’t allowed in yet; dust knocked inside the air vents might upset the circuits, let alone mop water, and the sign hanging on the door still read, “lab closed, experiment in progress.” Some experiment, Hunter Light thought as he switched on the machines. Some of them gave queer electric hums and clicks, one or two made an odd rattle, but the little lights were green where they were supposed to be and the red lights were dormant, and he felt relieved. Late analysis of the figures he’d received from that one tremendous surge suggested that some of the energy remained dormant in the memory banks. His computer schematics were at last beginning to reduce the unimaginable feedback of that one night last winter, into some sort of order; just in time, as the Yale bigwigs had been inquiring on his progress recently. If he could prepare a preliminary-finding report, that would keep them happy for a while. He wouldn’t send them the raw numbers, though. A discovery like this, he wanted it to be his own, not another’s. He’d had the idea. His fingers flew over the keyboard as the computer finished warming up, pulling up menus and arranging windows on the demo screen upon the wall. Graphs in red weblike lines formed, making queer twisting shapes; grids with wavering arrows, streams of symbols and the cryptic abbreviational shorthand with which mathematicians disguise their formulas from common eyes, all flickered up into view. So engrossed was he in his subject that when he looked over at the demonstration screen and found his sight blocked by a female body, he barely even noticed but simply craned around the obstruction. “I’ve heard of absent-minded professors before, but really, this is ridiculous.” the female obstruction said in a rich, beautiful but somehow husky voice. It was the voice more than anything else which made him at last aware of another presence, and he leaned back with a start. In the hard white light of the lab, the woman before him was revealed to be tall, strikingly, breathtakingly beautiful. “Um…I’m afraid the lab’s closed, miss…we’re in the middle of a scientific experiment here…” he faltered. “So I’ve heard,” she said, gliding about among the machines, running her hands lightly over their panels. As she did, every light on it flared up, going out when she passed on. “Most interesting, to be sure. That a human could reach by mere material instruments into the very foundation of the heavens was deemed impossible since the dying of the old laws. And not even the telescopes of the Centuar Tower can achieve what your ingenious cobbling of boxes has.” “Miss…um, who are? Are you from, um, a scientific institution of some sort?” “You tapped into the forces that hold the constellations in their planes, that keep the stars from flying apart; the concealed power, the breath of divine horns. I felt that power. I have come for it.” “I—I—I—what are you talking about?” The machines all roared to life, lights blinking and flickering faster than his eye could follow. The computer screens had gone mad. Images flashed across them in a bizarre static, until they ran together like a fluttering river. Light rayed about her, hiding her long shining hair, playing about the machines. “''Who are you? Who are you?” Hunter Light screamed. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t possible. This wasn’t scientifically compatible. The woman turned toward him, and at the radiating and yet eerie beauty of her glowing face, Hunter thought for one dizzying second he had died and gone beyond. “I am Sophia.” she said. The machines flashed steadily now. The images on the screens processed in stately sequence, but they were images no computer should be generating with this software. Light beamed from every vent. “Who are you?” he wailed. “I am Sophia.” she repeated. “Come, little tinkerer. You wanted to understand how the heavens hold together? You wanted to know the commands that bind the Stars? Draw near, then, and watch, for I am Sophia, and I am the last living one of all my people.” Light-headedly, Hunter rose to his feet. He swayed as if in a sugar attack. Laughing, the unearthly creature held out her hand, and suddenly he was all the way across the room, standing beside her. Her hand felt in his, not like flesh or even solid, but like cool fiery cloth, a wet cloth maybe, or one tingling with electricity. Then she lowered her other hand until it touched the machines. He barely understood the phenomena that happened next. The arcs of light springing from the machines he knew; the sparks of some jagged electric-like light of a queer cold yellow that left no electric tingle he guessed to be energy; but why a minor vortex should be forming above the telescope’s intake he had no idea, nor why it was glowing a vivid blue and purple. Then he saw the entering beam, and left the limits of his knowledge. Forces he had no comprehension of the existence thereof, shot down to meet the telescope and enter the boxes. Their plastic walls were now transparent, and he saw the most delicate rainbow hues flowing and seething among the circuits; every color he had ever known, and some colors he suspected were actually unknown, and the loveliness of them made his eyes bulge and his breath stop, unable to move or blink. It was like a thousand million star spectrums all shifting and flowing. Sparking fountains in the most fantastic hues burst from the air vents. He heard the weird humming musical crackle of the tremendous energies…nay, something not quite energy, something ethereal, something his soul felt as well as his body, coming down with the energy because it was attached to it, or because the energy was bound to it. Stars burst in his mind, unimaginable speeds, distances beyond mortal measures, cold, incredible heat, wheeling cosmos upon wheeling cosmos of stars, and yet they all were linked, they all were joined, held together at the foundation, tied by their essences. Now he understood why the scientists of the thirteenth century talked like philosophers of essences and substances, of quiddity and genus and quality, limpid light and humors that flowed. They were trying to grasp the base of nature. He and all scientists had only tried to grasp its’ materials. Hyperspace, he thought, dizzy and yet afire with thirst. I am seeing hyperspace. “Fascinating, isn’t it, darling?” said the radiant being at his side. “To see the commands by which the Gods laid down the stars…to see the power of the heavens that once were, diffused now into the heavens as they are. Your device is indeed a useful one. But I must not overload it; and if I draw any more power, I very well may.” She lifted her hand from the machines. The vortex imploded and was gone. The beam snapped out. For a short while rainbow rivers still played about the circuits, and rainbow fountains still sparked from every vent, but gradually the transparency faded, the colors dimmed, and the panel lights began to wink off. Hunter Light looked at the being that stood next to him. Luminous white, with a myriad hints of other hues dancing in every angle, the shape was no longer humanoid, but a form of what seemed pure light, in a shape beyond description; yet still somehow not only evidently feminine but incomparably lovely. “What are you.” he breathed. The luminous being laughed, an eerie, unbreathed sound, like liquid light splashing. Then it drew itself together, and the shape was that of a woman, the woman who had named herself Sophia. “I am what we all once were, before the Herald blew his horn. I am of the ones who praised Him in chorous while the sons of God shouted for joy. What you see in the heavens is the aftermath of ruin, when the Lord of the Cosmos made my people into gas, and spread us out across the vastnesses until the Herald sounds his horn. I am a Star.” “Stars are gas.” he heard himself say. “Are, not were,” she smiled, and the mocking beauty of that smile took away any further speech. Then Sophia’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and she moved like a blink toward a corner of the room. “Who is it? Who comes?” she said, and her voice was suddenly keen, cruel as knives, cold as stone. “You are not the last, fair sister.” said a faint but sweet voice. Sophia reeled back. Through the wall walked a ghost, a woman formed of transparent green mist, faintly shining. “I don’t….Maricrondo?? I don’t believe it!” Sophia gasped. “I thought you were bound within the Stone of Death!” “My body was,” the ghost answered. “My power was. But not my ghost. The King of the Dead held me captive all these ages, until the Hill of the Road and the Forest freed me in a riddle-game. And so I never saw the War in Heaven, nor took I any part in the Rebellion of the Stars.” “The Hill of the Road.” repeated Sophia. “The Forest. Has the Warden begun his calling so soon, then?” “This calling is like no others.” said the Green Lady. “The Warden himself is afraid. He accepts aid from the Weird Sisters. The Five Fortresses have reached this here at last. He has left Nine Signs, one on each hill. And this year the Children number six.” “There have only been three. Always three. The Hill, the Star, the Forest. Lane and Midwinter and one variable. Why now six?” “I have spoken with the Hill, and he is not a Lane. I have spoken with the Forest, and he is not a Midwinter. This year the Lane is a Traveller, and the Star is Cold, and the Forest can not only see but also call, and there is a Brook, and a Bell for the Churches, and the Hill can not only reveal but command. And in the wings wait the Three Elders, and out of the secret roads they have loosed Wayham himself, and there are dragons abroad. And the Wild Man of Winsted walks the streets.” “This is fell news.” murmered Sophia. “The Road is growing nearer than it has been in all it’s Returnings. It is bestowing strange powers. Does he, then, fear that the great time is ahead?” “It would be a likely thing, Sophia. I give thanks for this professor and his mysterious engine, for by it I may return into the living.” “It has indeed proved useful,” mused Sophia, “for I have now within me the power of eighteen Stars. There will be no need to use the machines, my sister. Your true body lies bound into the black gem, and with it your power…but I will put power into you, and I will split my own shape that you may have something to wear as a body of sorts. Enough to enjoy, at least. Then you will have the power of one Star, while I will be as strong as seventeen Stars. Nor will you thus hold the curse within you that prevented us from fighting; for I am immune.” “This seems good to me, my sister.” Professor Light felt an almost solid force throw him down, so that he fell hard on his seat and remained there, staring. Machines creaked. A light bulb splintered. Power was raying from Sophia into the green ghost, and Sophia was growing larger, broader—no, she was two now, one glowing form merging with the green ghost, the other standing alone. A blinding glow built up around Sophia’s head. Suddenly a thick rope of power, like a log of solid light, appeared between the two forms. The greenish figure’s head snapped back. With a burst of light the power flowed in down her mouth. The two figures dimmed, slowly, one condensing into the shape of the Green Lady, wearing the same clothes the ghost had worn—a green frilled dress and a green bonnet—the other taking on the unmistakable form of Sophia. “How is it, Maricrondo?” smiled Sophia. The Green Lady lifted her hands and looked at them. “So heavy,” she marvelled. “The power I had so long missed…oh, not mine, it feels like another woman’s underclothing…but it is power, and body, and it is far better than my former nakedness. Sophia,” bowing to the ground, “my eternal gratitude.” Hunter Light, blinking on the ground, suddenly said, “You both are…''Stars?” “Oh, it’s finally getting through, is it, honey?” teased Sophia, turning to him. “Let me see…my inquiries put you as the famous Hunter Light, correct?” “I am.” he said, getting to his feet. “Father of Bell, whom I think you were just talking about.” “Hunter of Light.” mused Sophia. “A name like that, in a place like this, never is coincidence. He cannot have spoken with Arheled, from the ignorance in his tone, but nevertheless…he did invent this machine.” Hunter Light may have been a thick-skulled grown-up when it came to unusual events, but he was a scientist, and a scientist who knows his job is one who tries to understand the unknown (not squeeze the unknown into his own square holes). And once the incomprehensibility of the events had passed, he found these mystical, half-angelic beings fitting eerily in place with little scraps of what he’d been hearing from his children—the name Arheled, for one—nor had he forgotten that day when the Lake stood on its’ head. “Your bodies, are they composed of matter at all, or are you actually just wrapping mater around you?” he said. Both Stars gazed fixedly at him. Neither, therefore, noticed the quiet glow on the floor at the far end. “A surprisingly intelligent question,” said Sophia. “I do not believe I ever tried to define the physical nature of my own essence, but I believe Arcturus said once, ‘A Star is born of Daslenga and woven of light and power.’ Our bodies are changeable. Not as yours…at what are you staring?” “Something is behind us.” said the Green Lady. Both Stars whirled. At the far end of the room the floor was melting, rising slowly upward, until it burst and fell away, and left there standing the form of a man that Hunter knew very well. ''“You?” he said, his voice shaking with rage. “What are you doing here?” “You know this man?” said Sophia doubtfully. “Yes,” growled Hunter Light, stepping around the boxes of machinery, “I know him. He’s the man who wrecked my home, who had my kids up on false charges, the town bigwig, police in his pocket. He is Cornello.” “''Stop!”'' Sophia’s voice snapped like thunder. Hunter jerked to a halt. “He is not what you think he is. He is far worse. I know him. You cannot hope to face him. We know him.” “Yes,” the bald man said placidly, “I am '' Car’nhellnar.'' I greet you, Sophia. And you, Maricrondo. Congratulations on your survival.” “Beware.” Sophia murmered. “You know what we are dealing with. Beware, sister.” “I agree with your wisdom, Sophia.” he said. He moved faster than they did. Hunter Light had no idea what happened, but he saw the result: Cornello stood untouched, the two Stars lay on the floor, fighting a gelatin-like capsule spell that thickened steadily. “Even so trapped I Polaris in the Rebellion.” he said. The spell flew apart. Sophia teleported in front of him. The College began to shake to its’ foundations as she slowly lifted her hands. “You are not facing Polaris now,” she said in a voice like a hundred voices blended, “you are facing Sophia!” Their hands, held forward at waist level, froze. Though they were not touching, Hunter felt power '' between them. It made his lungs twisty. It made his teeth ache. Around them tiny cracks were forming in the plaster. The floor, and indeed the very walls, creaked as if strained to bursting point. It reminded him of two very powerful magnets being forced to touch like poles. He guessed what would happen. It did not happen as he expected, with an explosive recoil that sent one or both flying. Light began suddenly to break out in arcs and loops from Sophia’s quivering hands. Her hands were fraying. Suddenly she ''blorped, her shape burst into an amorphous mass of animate light, that light still pressing against a something that was coming out from Cornello. And he too was changing. Not one head but seven were slowly rising from his neck, and on those heads were diadems….long, hideous, reptilian heads…. Dragon heads. Cornello was a dragon. Fire—yet not heated fire, he realized at once, or the room would have melted, but some dreadful cool energy—poured from all seven mouths. Sophia’s light flared in a shifting nightmare of shapes. For a while she managed to stem the tide, but slowly the power of the Father of Dragons bore her down. “It took thirty of your kind’s most talented men to overcome one of my lesser brethren, and he wearied at the time.” the seven heads roared. “Seventeen Stars’ strength is nowhere near enough, Sophia, to overcome one of the Black Seraphim!” There was a crash as the Green Lady shattered the broken gelatin spell still binding her. She was all on fire with green light. “Sophia!” she screamed. Hunter’s eyes were blinded. As they cleared, he saw a flaming beam of pure green light thundering into the Father of Dragons. The Green Lady was giving him everything she had. Sophia pulled free of the streaming fire and collapsed into her normal shape, dim, unshining, fallen to the floor. Cornello, shaking himself free, laughed. “So you desire to pay your debt.” he mocked. Seizing the blast of power he began reeling it in, hand over hand, pulling the Green Lady toward him. “Well, they lie who say that we for our part do not honor valor. I need only one Star. You are not the prize Sophia was…but you will the seventh throne most nicely. Thank you, Sophia. You have been very kind. You have given me exactly what I needed.” Then he had vanished. And the laboratory fell dark and silent. The only sound was the last one that any who had known her through her endless ages would have expected: the sobbing of Sophia, the last of the Stars. Travel was a little surprised when Ronnie drove up her driveway and knocked on her door, but she answered the door anyway. “Hey, Ron! What’s up?” “I didn’t want to call,” he said, “because I’m beginning to suspect our Mutual Friend with numerous heads has been tapping our phones. Need to bring you up to date. I just got kicked out of the library.” “You cracked one too many jokes?” “Yeah, dragons are a sore subject in town. But this is the nasty thing: I’m almost certain I saw the Witch of Winchester pulling in as I left.” “That’s creepy. You think she’s in league with the librarians?” “Considering Nerissa is into Wicca, I wouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, I wanted to ask you: you been practicing your power?” She giggled. “Um, I did teleport up to the house on the way home from school cause Ben was making a pass—“ Ronnie sighed. “Practiced on objects? Trees? Rooted things? Loose things?” “Nooo.” Travel said mournfully. He shut his eyes wearily. “We’re going for a spin. I want you to teleport that car—''while it’s driving.'' And set it down again without crash landing. And teleport small objects randomly. We need to be ready, Travel. We’re preparing for war.” “You’re as bad as a gym trainer.” she complained. “Or Wayham. He’s been pestering me every time I see him to practice. I yelled out the window I’d practice dropping him in the pond if he didn’t stop.” “You’re practicing.” “You are a natural bully.” she wailed. “Fine. All right. We’ll practise.” Hunter Light walked around the discolored and sooty-looking equipment until he reached the broken floor where the battle had been fought. He stared down at the sniffling woman who sprawled there, with folded arms and a stern light in his eyes. At that moment every one of his pupils, had they been there, would have been quietly trying to avoid drawing his attention. They knew what that meant in him. “Sophia.” he stated. He gave her a sharp nudge with one foot. “You and I have some talking to do. And some things you had better answer.” She lifted tear-wracked cheeks, pushing back dark hair from them, and in that moment she looked like the loveliest thing on God’s good earth. He ignored it. His entire being was taunt with anger. “I want to know exactly what is going on, and what my family is being caught up in. Who is Arheled? What are you Stars? Why do you say the Five Churches? What has Bell got to do with them? And what is the Road?” Tears dried up, replaced with a sizzling gleam. “I could fry you where you stand.” she hissed. “No,” said Hunter brutally, “you can’t. I’m willing to bet you went all-out in that little firefight, and now you’re so exhausted from fighting that Book-of-Revelation dragon you can’t even swat a fly, much less do me any harm.” “My body is light.” she snapped. He smiled in contempt. “You felt as solid as I am. And that means you’re vulnerable…as any strong man would be if he was taken ill.” Bending down he grabbed her by the throat. With a vicious yank he pulled her off the floor. Part of him was revolted at this violence to a beautiful woman, but the rest of him was mad as hell. “I want some answers, Sophia. So talk…now.” “You don’t have the nerve.” she laughed scornfully. He hadn’t, but having his bluff called made him really mad. He squeezed. Hard. As Sophia’s face reddened and her breath choked, he saw the sudden sickening realization flash through her eyes: she really couldn’t fight him. He let go, and she sagged limply to the floor. “All right.” she gasped, when she’d rubbed her throat some. “You want answers, college boy, you’ll get them. And they’ll be more than you can handle.” “Then I’ll ask for explanations.” She sighed. “So much to say…does the name Arheled have any meaning to you? Have you heard it before?” “From my two children, yes.” “Oh, you have two?” “Both Bell and Forest are my own.” said Hunter stiffly. Sophia’s eyes actually widened. “You are one of the Three Elders.” she stated. “I am not. Who are these Elders?” “Oh, you are, or will be.” she smiled wearily. “Old Arheled doesn’t leave that big of a chance go dangling. Father of two Children of the Road, and with a name like Hunter Light—you’re an Elder, all right. Only an Elder would dare attack me like you have—most men in this town would be running for the cops, tails tripping their arses. The other Elders will likely be Lane and Midwinter—he’d never let those houses pass.” “But what the heck is all this?!” “Oh, where to start, where to start. Well, how about starting with your two children, since you know them best?” “I haven’t seen Forest in four years.” “Divorce?” She laughed at his surprised look, but it was a painful laugh. “I know more about your world than you could guess, boy. I am not young. I’ve been around since before the Elves awoke, when the New Stars were called into being. “Ah yes, your charming offspring. Well, they’ve been—singled out, I suppose. Called. Only those who can see truly—who notice things, appreciate things, have a certain thoughtful way of regarding life outside themselves—can hear him calling. He awakes them. Dreams, whispers on the wind. Riddling remarks from odd men met at public places.” “That rhyme of the churches!” exclaimed Hunter. “Of course! That strange man in brown. But who is he?” “The Warden in White.” said Sophia. The half-mocking tone had vanished from her voice. “The Superior Silver. He of the High-noble Crystal. The King of the Road. Arheled is what we name him, but who is he? Venda, that is all we know, but not Mid. Of the Great he is, and high in power, second, perhaps, to none save the Gods.” “I’m a Christian.” he said. “I don’t believe in gods.” “Names,” she said dismissively. “You know them as Messengers, but that’s only one thing they do, and done by a small percentage at that. Not everyone in the Post Office delivers mail, you know. Some have bigger jobs. Lords of the West, Powers, Gods—it doesn’t matter what they’re called, as long as they’re not worshipped.” He nodded, to show her she could go back on target. “Yes. Well, I’m not of them. Not a spirit. I doubt even our fair Lord ever made more than one of him; He does that, sometimes. He was in charge of holding the Road together while we drove away the Dark One, and it was he who told us he would walk the Road and steer it.” “What is the Road?” He still couldn’t make sense of Arheled, but he suspected she couldn’t, either. “Power.” she answered simply. “A command, we call it. You would think of it as a spiritual force, aware, able to act on its’ own, like a Ring of Power. That’s why it must be steered. It binds together the surface of Arda; but Arda is round now, and flies wildly through space; so every hundred years the Road returns to Earth.” She held his eyes with hers, suddenly stern. “This is the hundredth year.” “And there have to be ceremonies?” “No. All that is needed is that it be anchored; not only to the substance, but to the denizens, of Arda. For this purpose Men have been called to walk the Road, ever since the World was Bent.” “If you’re a Star, why are you the last one left?” “Oh, that. The Great Disaster. Around Noe’s time, that was. I hear you’re a Bible-thumper; my Genesis is a little rusty, but I seem to recall that the heavens were convulsed as well as the earth.” “The best Bibical scholars hold that tectonic action didn’t begin until the Flood, if that’s what you mean.” Hunter said stiffly. “Ah, how right they are, and how wrong they surmise. Why do you think the crust shattered, and what could have broken it? Every time the Road returns, Arheled calls three to greet it, to walk upon it when it is there, to show them.” A tremendous sorrow suddenly yawned in her eyes, normally hidden by shuttered doors, a sorrow so at odds with her eerie mocking personality it was profoundly shocking. “To show them of what was there before.” “Your people?” The shutters closed. That worldly mockery was back in her eyes; but there was, as well, a sense of unguessed ages of existence, a weight of time behind her. “You’ve seen some of what we can do. Magic, you might call it, but science too. But we destroyed ourselves.” “Nuclear war in heaven?” Sophia gave him the wise, patronizing, humerous look a mother gives when her little boy is trying to act grown-up. “War, yes. A war our only law forbade. I was the only one there who kept that law—I fled here. To Earth. And the curse took the others. And then the Herald blew his horn, and we were all dead. We have vast power, Hunter. When a bomb goes off, and you somehow deflect the energy, where does it go?” “Somewhere it can expand.” “Well, our energy did. And condensed. The Herald sent us speeding outward, away from Earth. We made stars as we died. Our power changed to gas. Galaxies of gas. One or two stars of each of our wreckage stayed visible in its’ old place, to hold the constellations.” She held out one white arm, indicating his star chart. “All those galaxies, and stars? We were seventy thousand when we died. And of them all, from 70,000 Stars, came the uncounted zillions of gas-balls. Maybe you can begin to understand, now, just what happened in this room. I had as much power as 17 of my people. That’s a good few thousand galaxies of wattage up my belt. And that dragon just beat me to a pulp.” “He’s the Devil, isn’t he?” “One of them.” She shuddered. “Not, of course, the Dark One himself, but still—high up. Or Low Down, if you prefer Lewis’s expression.” “But you still haven’t answered—“ Sophia climbed slowly to her feet. A smile briefly passed across her face: hard, uncanny, and frightening beyond belief. It was not a human smile. “You’ll have to get your answers elsewhere, boy. It’s a saying, ‘Nothing can quench the thirst of a piercer.’ Or a scientist, if you prefer.” The smile died. “I haven’t seen one of our people in nine thousand years….and the only other Star alive is taken down to Hell.” White flickered in her eyes. “I may have to walk out of here, but I’m rested enough now to keep you from harming me. Stand aside. Let me go, that for the first time in ninety centuries Sophia herself may weep.” Back to Arheled